


stand, as the world falls away

by oceaes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Mid season 7, Pining Lance (Voltron), its basically what lance was thinking when he was about to die in ep 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 23:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15695409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaes/pseuds/oceaes
Summary: The ship continues it’s advances, and Lance canfeelit now. The ocean currents against his skin. The blue of the sky and the roughness of the grass. He can feel the Earth and the stars as they press promises against his skin.We will not forget you. They will not forget you.He closes his eyes.--(he must have been terrified, to know it was hopeless--and stand up anyways.)





	stand, as the world falls away

**Author's Note:**

> since vld won't let lance have feelings then i guess i'll have to do it myself!
> 
> the following is my take on what was going through Lance's head in s7 ep10 when the massive Galra ship attacked him and his sister.

Lance never expected he’d die on Earth.

Of course he’d expected to _die_ , but he assumed it would be in space. Where he’s learned to stare death in the face, memorized it’s emptiness, followed the curve of the hollow feeling it twists his stomach into. Too many lonely nights were spent consumed by the feeling. Too many lonely nights were consumed by no feeling at all.

He’s stared death in the face so many times, it’s a wonder he still manages to be afraid of it. It’s a wonder he still manages to be afraid of anything, really.

_(“Well, you can control that.” Veronica had told him when he almost started crying at an amusement park. They went for her eleventh birthday, and when they rode the ferris wheel together, Lance squeezed her hand so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Let it run its course, Leandro. Fear can never get in the way of something you love.”)_

He doesn’t think he believes that anymore. Slashing his shield open and spearing it into the ground in front of him, his shield - his _fear_ \- now the only thing in the way of his sister and the shots that ring out all around them and no. He doesn’t believe that at all, because right now, fear is all he has.  

Lance would die before he let the Galra take that too.

He feels like he’s moving on autopilot. Like his body is in survival mode and his brain just hasn’t caught up yet. He’s moving, he _knows_ that, but he’s not entirely sure how he gets from one point to another. It feels almost like the first time he rode a skateboard. On his tenth birthday with his brother by his side, pushing him forward, moving without having to _move_.

_(“But what if I fall?” He had asked Luis when his older brother had suggested he try moving by himself._

_“Then you will stand up again. Promise me that you’ll always stand up again”)_

_(He promised.)_

He shoots three soldiers dead centre before ducking again, breathing shakily as the gun weighs his fingers down. A certain shame comes with each pulling of the trigger, a reminder that he never asked for this. He didn’t want to be a soldier, he was never meant to be one. And now the whole universe was balanced on his balancing act.

He shoots again.

_("Don't miss.")_

He doesn't.

A ship materializes through the dust cloud, and Lance doesn’t remember starting to cry, but regardless, he knows it’s not out of sadness. He’s stared death in the face so many times. By now he remembers the fear.

_(“You ran away.” he had accused Keith, floating out in the middle of nowhere.)_

Maybe now, with a Galran ship and twenty on foot soldiers advancing towards him, Lance is starting to realize that _running away_ might mean something different to Keith than it does to Lance.

_(He wants to run now.)_

He understands why Keith had done it, of course he does, thinks he always has. Keith was the piece of the puzzle that belonged where Lance tried to shove himself into. Bending his corners and rounding his edges in a desperate attempt to belong somewhere he didn’t. Mishappening him to a point where he didn’t think he’d fit into his own puzzle anymore.

He had gone to Keith with these insecurities before, shifted his eyes, held his pinky up as a trophy of _congratulations, you don’t belong here._ And Keith took that as his leave. Smiled that damn smile that set off fireworks in his lungs and released butterflies in his stomach and _Keith ran away._

From him.

And maybe Lance took it harder than everyone else. And maybe he doesn’t want to think about _why._

He thinks about it now, about the void it left in him, about the butterflies that Keith made flutter around his stomach, about how they turned from fluttering to clawing, begging to be released, begging to be let go. He thinks he knows what that meant now, why he was so empty when Keith left, why he was even emptier when he came back different, colder.

He thinks he wants to tell him.

_(He thinks he never will.)_

His back finds its way to the underside of the shield, and Lance takes a minute to breathe; pressing his bayard into his chest, pressing his feet into the ground. The Earth is trembling, or maybe that’s him. If he closes his eyes tight enough he can almost pretend he’s seven again. That Rachel had just gotten a new drum set and was incessantly banging vibrations through the whole house.

There’s a blast that rings out by his ear, and he can’t decide if the ringing that follows is product of the sound, or his teammate’s voices fizzling in and out of the comms. The selfish part of him hopes it’s the latter. That his story is written out in the blueprint of the cosmos, plastered against the darkness of the empty space, projected in their path.

_(”Don’t be ridiculous.” his older brother had said to him when he suggested, at just nine years old, that the stars pave the way for every story that ever was or ever will be. “We find our own way.”)_

Something flinches behind him. _Veronica._ A reminder of what he’s doing this for. A reminder of all the things he had to trade for this, all the things he left behind. All the things he just got back. Veronica is here now, lying behind him, clinging to her life like it were a scared boy riding the ferris wheel for the first time.

_(“Promise me that you’ll always stand up again.”)_

So he does.

He pushes through the cloud of dust, elbow cutting sharply through the rubble, bayard clutched tightly between his fingers and he’s not afraid anymore. He’s stared death in the face so many times before. He will not die afraid. His resistance is in his stance, bloodied and shaking and all wrong but he _won’t_ be afraid anymore.

Fear brings him to his feet that day. But love keeps him standing.

So he screams his defiance, shooting futile bullets at the ships nose. A declaration to keep fighting. To keep standing up. _I am not afraid of you._

Another squeeze of the trigger but this time without the shame. Without the weight of the destruction it will bring. It hits the ship’s wing - exactly where he was aiming - and for a moment Lance thinks it might have been enough just to try.

_“That’s why we bring our Sharpshooter.”_

Lance had suspected back then that Shiro had only said that to placate him, tell him what he wanted to hear so that he’d be satisfied with the acknowledgement. He suspects now that he was wrong. Another blast spreads across the Galra ship, dead centre in three parts but not penetrating, not even faltering the machine’s acceleration. He suspects now that _Sharpshooter_ is supposed to be so much more than a nickname.

It was supposed to be the view from the top of the ferris wheel and the standing up again. It was the running away, the story in the stars, his heartbeat mixing with the drumming in the living room. It was “leave the math to Pidge.” and “The Red Lion is choosing you.”

It was supposed to be hope.

Lance guesses fear can get in the way of that, too.

_(“Lance, are you there?”_

_“Lance, where are you, buddy?”_

_“Lance can you hear us?”_

_“Lance? Lance, come in!”)_

Did he ever respond? He’s not quite sure. He hopes at least that if he didn’t, his team isn’t too worried about him. They have enough to worry about as it is, navigating the endless space around the planet they so desperately wanted to protect. For a moment Lance wonders why he couldn’t protect it more, sooner. Before the planet he once called home was destroyed and replaced by a war zone.

_“The blue oceans, the white clouds, green grass… I can’t see any of it.”_

He thought that stepping foot on Earth would jog his memory. That seeing it again would unlock a cage in his mind, covered in dust and shoved behind a box of other memories, but still _there_ . When he got back, it was like Earth was just another planet. An inhabitable rock floating in space where memories are made and replaced. The grass is yellow and the sky is grey and everything is all wrong. Wandering the dilapidated walkways in the city, Lance had to accept that he _can’t see any of it_. And maybe he never will.

He sees it now, staring down a ship a thousand and one times bigger than him, screaming his life into the stars. _Please don’t forget me._ The ocean churns its currents freely, welcoming. _It’s yours if you want it_ . The sky is bluer than he thinks he’s ever seen, brighter, alive _. I do. I want it._

Another blast flies past him, striking the Earth a blade of green grass away from his left foot and yeah, he sees it now.

_(”Did you make it your personal mission to climb every tree on the planet?” His mama had yelled up at him one day, his feet dangling from the branch he had perched himself on._

_“It’s like I can see the whole world from up here.” it wasn’t really an answer, but it’s enough._

_And he could. He could see the ocean as his older brothers threw each other around, splashing their niece Nadia who was sitting on the sand. He could see his house, caged in by bushes but still warm and open and welcoming. He could see the smoke rising from the fryer where his dad and sister were making mandocas._

_Maybe not the entire world. But everything in the world that mattered.)_

He can see it now. But somehow, it isn’t everything that matters anymore.

The ship continues it’s advances, and Lance can _feel_ it now. The ocean currents against his skin. The blue of the sky and the roughness of the grass. He can feel the Earth and the stars as they press promises against his skin.

_We will not forget you. They will not forget you._

He closes his eyes.

And wrapped in their silence, he hears the world go flying past him.

The dust is back, louder than it ever was thick. It cuts through to his stomach, forcing the knot tighter.  Shots are ringing in slow motion and even with his eyes closed, somehow it gets darker. Like the shadow of the person he was a million lifetimes ago - before he was forced to fight in a ten thousand year old war - is here now. Keying open his memories and breaking in his mind. All the things he forgot, all the things he didn’t want to remember, flooding through his body the way his blast spread over the Galran ship.

_(“Voltron is the universe’s only hope.” Allura had once said to them.)_

Lance never wanted to believe that he was the dumb one, not in the way everyone kept insisting he was, but maybe now he could swallow his pride enough to confront reality. He _was_ the dumb one. For no other reason than he forgot what his title - _Paladin of Voltron: Defender of the Universe_ \- meant to people. He forgot that failing no longer meant offhand comments about his intelligence and snide remarks that he could deflect with humour. That failing himself meant failing the universe.

_(“We are the universe’s only hope.”)_

He apologizes to the universe for having to build hope on something as broken as him.

The ship is close, it’s a wonder how it hasn’t shot him yet, but he knows it will. He remembers now that he never got to say goodbye. Or rather, to say sorry.

To his team for not being a better paladin. For not being smarter or stronger or braver. For leaving them when they needed him the most. To his family for not saying goodbye the first time. For making them say goodbye again. To the stars for screaming his way into their makeup. Keeping a little piece of himself mapped out in the sky.

He whispers to them now. An apology to the people he’s hurt most in his life. The epilogue to his story. He feels the stars kiss his skin. A silent reminder that _we find our own way_ and Lance lets go. Lets the shadow of the boy he might just remember being breathe the remainder of his life into his lungs-

-and Lance breathes out.

_Rest easy, pilot._

.

.

.

But the blast doesn’t come.

There’s a rumbling in the Earth, just like Rachel's erratic drum playing, that rattles through his feet and climbs into his bones. The force tremors through his body and oh. He knows this feeling. Has felt it countless times and yet, somehow, it’s never managed to feel like _this_. There’s a rush of wind as the Earth parts in front of him and it knocks the air out of his lungs.

_Maybe you just have to knock._

Lance may have screamed his story into the stars, but Red took it back. Roared his own ending. _Your story is not over yet._ His bayard shifts in his grip, folding down into just a handle as Red opens his jaw to let Lance in, pave his own story, find his own way.

_(Good work, Sharpshooter.)_

And no matter the intention of the nickname, it kept him alive today, kept him standing, shooting, protecting. Reminded him that he made it back to Earth for a reason. Was on this team for a reason. That he was here, _fighting_ for a reason.

_(“Everyone sign off.”)_

Lance here.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading and supporting my stuff! 
> 
> if you enjoyed kudos and comments are always appreciated, and if you wanna see more from me, or you just wanna talk abt lance, you can find me on [tumblr.](https://oceaes.tumblr.com/)


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